Methane concentrations are not just rising, they’re rising faster than ever.
Rob Jackson, professor of Earth systems science, Stanford University
Is there something you can do? Yes! OCTOBER 1ST SENIORS DAY OF ACTION UPDATE
Hi everyone,
As we prepare to forward this latest update, we’re constantly being reminded of the impacts of the climate crisis. “We cannot possibly overstate the gravity of wildfires in Canada. We can only remind ourselves – again and again – that fossil fuel burning has given rise to climate breakdown. To the point that ember storms rain down on towns whose terrified citizens flee from monstrous, fast-moving tornados composed entirely of…fire,” writes author Jamie Swift, a Seniors for Climate volunteer.
“This time it was Jasper, Alberta. A place whose natural beauty had made it famous the world over. The alarm has been sounded for decades. The fossil fuel industry has long been aware of the damage that it has been causing. The climate breakdown perpetrators, like the tobacco business before it, have long adopted a strategy of delay, denial and obfuscation. But the game is up.”
Now, the update.
The previous update on the Seniors For Climate project was on July 11. We will continue to send out regular updates between now and the October 1st Day of Climate Action.
Organizers and volunteers are doing amazing work. Momentum is building. The energy level is high.
Countdown: *60* days to go.
The number of locations organizing for an Oct 1st action stands at 50. You can find them all on this interactive Map
* Our mailing list has grown to almost 600 contacts.
* We now have 6 Sponsors and 19 Endorsers.
* We continue to update and improve the website.
* Plans for the September webinar are being finalized.
* There have been two monthly meetings of event organizers – on June 25th and July 23rd.
* The Media & Communications team is fine-tuning the media plan, the production of videos and the social media rollout which will begin in mid-August.
* The Outreach and Support working groups are continuing to seek out new locations and also providing ongoing support for location organizers.
Things you can do to help
1. Find out if there’s an Oct 1st event/action near you. Click on the map here. If not, are you interested in organizing something in your area? We will provide the guidance and support you might need to make this happen. We have attained our goal of 50 locations but there is enormous potential to add more. Here’s a menu of actions to consider.
2. Pass on information about the event to your friends and organizations you belong to.
3. Let us know about organizations who might be interested in endorsing the SFC project. They can contact us at https://seniorsforclimate.org/.
Our fundraising is growing at a steady pace. But so are the costs of the project. We will be contracting the services of a publicist and videographer – total cost of *$15-20,000*. We are also adding more support staff required to maximize our outreach and impact. We wish to thank the 67 donors who have contributed to date – we’ve raised close to $6,111 through the Small Change Fund. Seniors For Climate is also obtaining other sources of funding but we continue to rely on the generosity and support of individual donors.
If you have not already done so, please consider making a donation by clicking on the button below. You will receive a charitable tax receipt for your donation. Thank You!
*Donate here*
And a special thank you for your ongoing support of this exciting initiative.
RMontpellier
Steering Committee
The methane imperative by Drew Shindell, Pankaj Sadavarte, Ilse Aben, Tomás de Oliveira Bredariol, Gabrielle Dreyfus, Lena Höglund-Isaksson, Benjamin Poulter, Marielle Saunois, Gavin A. Schmidt, Sophie Szopa, Kendra Rent, Luke Parsons, Zhen Qu, Gregory Faluvegi, and Joannes D. Maasakkers, July 29, 2024, Front. Sci
Volume 2 – 2024 | https://doi.org/10.3389/fsci.2024.1349770
Abstract
Anthropogenic methane (CH4) emissions increases from the period 1850–1900 until 2019 are responsible for around 65% as much warming as carbon dioxide (CO2) has caused to date, and large reductions in methane emissions are required to limit global warming to 1.5°C or 2°C. However, methane emissions have been increasing rapidly since ~2006.When frac’ing sky rocketed and regulators deregulated to enable the severely polluting, water and health destroying, brute force and ignorant practice.
This study shows that emissions are expected to continue to increase over the remainder of the 2020s if no greater action is taken and that increases in atmospheric methane are thus far outpacing projected growth rates. This increase has important implications for reaching net zero CO2 targets: every 50 Mt CH4 of the sustained large cuts envisioned under low-warming scenarios that are not realized would eliminate about 150 Gt of the remaining CO2 budget. Targeted methane reductions are therefore a critical component alongside decarbonization to minimize global warming. We describe additional linkages between methane mitigation options and CO2, especially via land use, as well as their respective climate impacts and associated metrics. We explain why a net zero target specifically for methane is neither necessary nor plausible. Analyses show where reductions are most feasible at the national and sectoral levels given limited resources, for example, to meet the Global Methane Pledge target, but they also reveal large uncertainties. Despite these uncertainties, many mitigation costs are clearly low relative to real-world financial instruments and very low compared with methane damage estimates, but legally binding regulations and methane pricing are needed to meet climate goals.
Key points
- The atmospheric methane growth rates of the 2020s far exceed the latest baseline projections; methane emissions need to drop rapidly (as do CO2 emissions) to limit global warming to 1.5°C or 2°C.
- The abrupt and rapid increase in methane growth rates in the early 2020s is likely attributable largely to the response of wetlands to warming with additional contributions from fossil fuel use, in both cases implying that anthropogenic emissions must decrease more than expected to reach a given warming goal.
- Rapid reductions in methane emissions this decade are essential to slowing warming in the near future, limiting overshoot by the middle of the century and keeping low-warming carbon budgets within reach.
- Methane and CO2 mitigation are linked, as land area requirements to reach net zero CO2 are about 50–100 million ha per GtCO2 removal via bioenergy with carbon capture and storage or afforestation; reduced pasture is the most common source of land in low-warming scenarios.
- Strong, rapid, and sustained methane emission reduction is part of the broader climate mitigation agenda and complementary to targets for CO2 and other long-lived greenhouse gases, but a net zero target specifically for methane is neither necessary nor plausible.
- Many mitigation costs are low relative to real-world financial instruments and very low compared with methane damage estimates, but legally binding regulations and widespread pricing are needed to encourage the uptake of even negative cost options.
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Conclusions and next steps
The GMP has created enormous policy momentum. Alongside it, the Global Methane Hub (https://globalmethanehub.org/) links ~20 philanthropic organizations’ supporting action, and the CCAC links development banks with mitigation implementers. As such, there is an urgent need for expanded and improved knowledge of both the benefits of and opportunities for mitigation and access to finance to support the effective implementation of mitigation policies. This information can be provided with support tools that keep pace with rapidly advancing knowledge regarding current emission sources, especially via remote sensing.
Our analyses support three imperatives for methane mitigation. We illustrate how observations show increased methane concentration growth rates, which have recently reached the greatest values on record according to both ground-based and satellite data. Observed methane growth rates are now much higher than the mean predictions across models and far above levels consistent with Paris Climate Agreement goals. Human activities are predominantly responsible for the past ~15 years of growth—with contributions from increased emissions from wetlands due to anthropogenic global warming and from direct anthropogenic emissions. The first imperative is therefore to change course and reverse methane emission growth through stronger policy-led action targeting all major drivers of methane emissions as well as to greatly reduce CO2 emissions rapidly.
The second imperative is to align methane and CO2 mitigation. Major and rapid reductions in methane are integral to least-cost 1.5°C- and 2°C-consistent scenarios alongside the transformations needed to reach net zero CO2 by ~2050. However, net zero methane emissions is not the target owing to abatement challenges for some sources and its short lifetime. Nevertheless, since methane and CO2 each contribute to warming, maximizing reductions in methane emissions is important both for its own sake to ensure that 1.5°C- or 2°C-consistent CO2 trajectories are feasible and to reduce CDR requirements. Methane and CO2 mitigation actions are tightly interrelated: reducing methane emissions can directly contribute to reduced atmospheric CO2 via carbon cycle interactions. Focusing on land use, we quantify how decreased livestock numbers afforded by reduced consumption of cattle-based foods not only help reduce methane emissions but also free up land to help meet projected needs for CDR at levels required to achieve long-term climate goals. Rapid and deep cuts to CO2 and methane provide the strongest climate benefits across the century.
The third imperative highlights the need to optimize methane abatement policies. We show that both technological abatement options and systemic and behavioral choices must be addressed to reduce methane emissions. Our national-level analysis of methane mitigation opportunities highlights the need to address all subsectors when considering abatement options. We find that although many mitigation costs are low relative to real-world financial instruments and methane damage estimates, strong, legally binding regulations need to be in place even in the case of negative-cost options. To help policymakers and project funders, we created an online tool that explores different options and their cost-effectiveness. This tool supports policymakers by, for example, displaying (i) the most cost-effective options for countries to achieve a desired methane abatement objective economy-wide by sector or by subsector and (ii) the options in each country or countries that provide the largest abatement opportunities for a given spending level. Given substantial uncertainties in both emissions and costs, these data provide guidance for funders or policymakers who can then pursue more detailed studies. Funding equivalent to mitigation costs is not necessarily required since the cost analyses could support regulatory policies, e.g., by showing that they do not impose onerous burdens. For example, mitigation in the fossil sector is both large and low in cost in China and India, as are reductions in landfill methane in India, suggesting these two non-GMP countries have the potential to achieve major methane reductions with limited financial burdens.
The tool provides abatement potentials both as tonnes and percentages. The latter facilitates use with observations, for example, the identification of emission sources by satellites with global coverage but relatively low spatial resolution that are followed up by higher resolution site-specific quantification of emission rates (Figure 12). These data will soon be complemented by the satellite missions Carbon Mapper, MethaneSAT, GOSAT-GW, Sentinel-5, and Satlantis as well as datasets produced by the Integrated Global Greenhouse Gas Information System and the International Methane Emissions Observatory. Automated reporting based on satellite observations promises to provide rapid information on emissions and progress in abatement [e.g., (49), (107)] though updates to mitigation potentials and costs based on new data will take considerable time and effort.
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The new tool complements another showing the benefits of methane abatement (http://shindellgroup.rc.duke.edu/apps/methane/). That tool allows the user to select global or regional methane mitigation options by sector and cost and then displays national-level benefits including ozone effects on human health, yields for several major staple crops, heat-related labor productivity, and the economic valuation of these.
Though methane has similar environmental impacts wherever it is emitted, co-emissions affect those living near sources with environmental justice implications [e.g., (128, 129)]. These include hazardous hydrocarbons, such as benzene, that are frequently emitted by gas and oil facilities, black carbon from flaring, and ammonia from manure ponds.
Methane-producing infrastructure is often in areas with high social vulnerability [e.g., (130)]. Accounting for co-emissions requires improved data on their spatial distribution and volume, especially in areas with nearby vulnerable populations.
There is also a need to improve understanding of several physical processes influencing the climate impacts of methane emissions. Methane-induced ozone increases affect the carbon cycle, amplifying the climate impact of methane, but the magnitude of this effect is highly uncertain (12). Additionally, methane affects particle formation via oxidants, producing aerosol-cloud interactions that may augment the climate impact of methane (131). Studies also report divergent results for the net cloud response to methane when the shortwave absorption of methane is accounted for (132, 133). A better understanding of the response of natural methane emissions to climate change is also needed. Improved capabilities to monitor emissions from difficult-to-access methane-source areas (e.g., wetlands) using remote sensing should help constrain changes in natural sources over the coming decade. A research agenda for methane removal technologies, which could be deployed in the unlikely event of a surge in natural emissions, has been called for [e.g., (134)] and is currently being assessed (https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/atmospheric-methane-removal-development-of-a-research-agenda).
Though additional observations and improved scientific understanding will be valuable, securing the benefits for climate, health, labor productivity, and crops (4, 79) that are the rationale for the GMP requires immediate implementation to achieve the emission reductions envisioned by 2030. Not only is our understanding of methane science and mitigation options sufficient to act upon, but political support is evidenced by the GMP, and financial support is growing. It is also becoming clearer how methane fees would achieve climate goals and enhance well-being. In the face of ever-increasing climate damages, including heat waves, flooding, storms, and fires, the world has a real opportunity to reduce the rate at which these effects grow between now and 2050 via methane action, with the main impediment being the will to implement the known solutions.
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